Fellow Traveler
by quietwraith
Summary: It is not the fanatic who keeps a regime going, but the fellow traveler. A person willing to overlook terrible things. A person willing to condone terrible things. A person like Rhea Jag, who just wants to do well on her exams and doesn't care for politics. But the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games draw near, and soon, it will be impossible to remain apolitical, if it ever was. Twoshot.
1. Before

The biology exam was in two weeks, and all her friends wanted to talk about was the upcoming Games. Because of course. Rhea flipped through her notes, trying to absorb the information, but it was impossible. The Reapings would be tomorrow, and she was both excited, and annoyed that studying would now become impossible until the Games were over. This was her sixth and final year of exam season also being Games season, and Rhea was still not used to it. At least next year would be different, university exams were way earlier. And she wouldn't have this horde distracting her with their endless chatter. While the entire group was going to university, she was the only one going into nursing, so she wouldn't be chatting with them all the time. Although she'd probably still manage to be distracted. Ugh.

"There is absolutely no way they will include killer terrain. Not after 72." Nobody knew how Julius had managed to learn as much Games trivia as he had, he knew all the top 8's and terrains and more. But 72 was the only time Rhea had really cared about who won, and she knew more than him about that one year.

"Did someone say '72'?" she asked with a grin. "That was a special case. The tributes got clothing that was unsuited for the weather so that they'd all have to run to the Cornucopia or freeze before the next day which led to, like, the biggest bloodbath ever, and then when the Careers stepped on that unstable rock, it was basically over. The Gamemakers just have to give the tributes clothes you can actually survive in and have natural food, and then it would have been way more fun."

Julius looked up from his notes. "Actually, at 14 dead, that was only the third largest bloodbath. It was also the fifth-shortest Games, at 5 days long."

Well, it had seemed like an eternity when Rhea had cheered on Josh Dirik of District Five as he outlasted his way into victory. She hadn't much cared about him until he went to the Cornucopia immediately after the six cannon blasts that signified the death of the alliance. She had been so impressed by that daring, the way he guessed at who those blasts were for. After that, she watched his every move, and after his victory, she rewatched his clip like five thousand times.

He only got a three in training, but during his interview, he joked that there were many effective things you could do that were not particularly impressive(and Rhea had to admit, she kinda teared up when he addressed his friends and said he wished they'd find someone to replace him in their ballgames. That sort of frank acceptance was rare). When the gong sounded, he only ran close enough to the Cornucopia to grab a blanket and run into the mountains. All but two of the tributes had run to the Cornucopia and the fight was intense, so he went unnoticed by the audience until he was ambushed by the girl from 12. Josh managed to catch the rock she threw at him and throw it back at her with almost inhuman speed and precision, cracking her skull. He huddled there until the Careers died(with the help of a parachute from impressed sponsors), and then went to the Cornucopia. Some other tributes got the same idea, but he got there first, and was able to ambush and kill both who tried - the pair from 9 - under the cover of darkness. And that was it. A boring Games, but it was the most nerve-wracking thing Rhea had ever watched.

She tried to concentrate on her notes, but it was impossible. Rhea glanced at the top of the far wall, opposite to the table they were sitting at. As in every classroom, office, factory, and living room in Panem, the Portrait and the Seal hung proudly. President Snow's face seemed to sternly gaze at her. It was freaky. Rhea grimaced and tried to block out the happy chatter of her friends and concentrated on her notes. When she looked up, Snow looked at her in quiet approval. Sometimes Rhea was willing to swear the portraits were alive. It was dumb, she knew, but they always managed to freak her out.

It was almost the end of the school day. Normally, Rhea would have been at home by now - she always left when she had a spare last thing in the day, especially since today was a Friday. But today, she had to haul herself to a preventative conversation. To make things worse, she didn't even know why she had been ordered to go to one. Had someone lied to get her in trouble? Or did they hear something out of context? Rhea never said anything really improper when people she didn't trust could hear, but any Capitolite knew that the walls had ears. What if?

Ah well. She would find out soon enough. The clock on the wall seemed to not be moving at all as Aliviana was talking about celebrity news to her twin sister, Eliviana, who wasn't really part of their group. Ana did not seem to be as interested in Victors drama as Aliviana, though. It sometimes struck Rhea as odd that the sister who was academically strong was also the one who lived for gossip and drama. Most people thought that the two did not go together.

"Hey, Rhea, why are you still here? You never stay when you have a spare," asked Marc, putting away his tablet. He had a meeting with Guidance to go to.

"I have this meeting afterschool," she answered Marc's question. Admitting the truth was a bad idea, it was bad enough that she knew it. She didn't want random people to overhear that she had to go to preventative conversations. At least her friends knew her subtle wording, and she - theirs.

"Ouch," said Marc. "How long's it going to last?"

"Too long. I just want to go home and sleep."

"Mood," added Aliviana. "The Reapings are tomorrow, I'm gonna be glued to the television, phone in hand, the entire day. Gotta rest up so I don't fall asleep before I can really get analyzing." She loved to spend her time on Games forums, discussing, analyzing, and predicting.

It was soon time for the conversation, so Rhea packed her things, grabbed her bag, and left to a small chorus of goodbyes and promises to text if anything particularly crazy happened during non-mandatory. She only watched the mandatory portion of the Games because she didn't like sitting in front of the television. It felt weird, to just sit and sit and sit.

As she walked, Rhea became more and more nervous. What if someone _had _overheard hersaying something improper? She never told jokes in public places, but her friends did sometimes. Were they going to accuse her of having Rebel sympathies? People vanished for that kind of stuff. She hoped it was just a misunderstanding, her parents would kill her if it was something serious. Heart in her throat, she knocked on the door.

"Come in!" said the voice of the social worker, but when she went inside, there was also a Peacekeeper sitting on the couch and fiddling with their phone.

"Um, hello," she said, trying not to panic.

Prima seemed to sense her mounting terror. "Do not worry," she said gently, "The Peacekeeper is just because of some sensitive information that should not be passed to more people than absolutely necessary."

"Oh!" said Rhea. "Is this because of the Rebel propaganda I reported?" She hadn't wanted to report it, but if she didn't, they'd ask why. She would have been seen picking it up by the cameras, after all.

"Partially," said the Peacekeeper. "I suppose we should do this fast, so I can be out of your hair quickly. What did you think when you found it?"

Rhea had been walking home when she had seen the folded piece of paper in a crack in the wall. She had opened it, realized before reading a word what it was, and still read it. Even though she had only read it once, it was still stuck in her head, perfectly memorized. It was a pretty badly written poem, but it was kind of catchy.

_The president's portrait hangs on the wall_

_Long years in power have taken their toll._

_This toll has been paid in human lives,_

_The murder of innocents as an act of compromise._

_Kidnappings and arrests, disappearances and tortures_

_And they tell us to be grateful for our good fortunes!_

_Respect long since eroded, our fists are clenched_

_With the blood of others' children, our hands are drenched._

_Let's be rid of this portrait up on the wall!_

_Come on, fellow citizens, let's take up this call._

"Well, it's Rebel propaganda," said Rhea. "It's foolish and mendacious." She wasn't sure why she was using fancy words all of a sudden, but whatever. "I am not going to take seriously something that insults the President himself." Snow had allegedly saved them all from the destruction of the Dark Days and the Rebels were too ignorant to know that. Rhea didn't think so, but she wasn't dumb enough to say that where others could hear.

The Peacekeeper was typing. "Very well then," she said, "I will go now." She closed the door softly, leaving Rhea alone with Prima. Her heart was still beating too fast, but she wasn't scared anymore. Was this all? Prima still looked tense.

Prima fiddled with a notebook. "I received a worrying anonymous report about something you said. They claim that you said that the Games were unfair because of the age discrepancy. Please enlighten me, what was actually the case?"

The last of the worry drained out of Rhea. This, she could spin. If someone had somehow overheard the joke about Snow and the pig farm, she would have been screwed. "They heard it out of context! I'm not anti-Games - I just said - it was the other way around-"

"Breathe."

Rhea paused before trying again. "I said that the people in remote Districts are dumb because nobody ever volunteers but they blame Snow for killing their children. If they don't want 12-year-olds to die, shouldn't they just get 18-year-olds to volunteer? Maybe they'd be less poor then, too, with the winnings they could get." That was the most pro-Capitol way she could spin it. By now, it was as natural as breathing. Having friends who cracked politically dangerous jokes in the library made her good at spin.

"Ah," said Prima. "So you blame the Districts for their situation?"

That was a very harsh way to put it. "Yes! I mean, who else could be at fault?"

"Well, that's no problem then." Prima clearly also wanted the week to end already. "I do not see need to contact your parents nor to write you up. You're free to go, enjoy the Games!" Being a good student was useful in some more subtle ways. Everyone thought you followed the rules, and they thought that they could control you by threatening your admissions chances - which, to be honest, they kind of could.

"You too!" said Rhea, leaving. Were all preventative conversation so easy? Probably yes. They were _preventative, _meant to warn people to watch their words. For actual suspected Rebels, there were interrogations and questioning at The Building That Could Not Be Photographed. She put it out of her mind. The Reapings were tomorrow!

Rhea practically ran home. She dragged herself up five flights of stairs to get to her apartment, and breathed a sigh of relief when there was no light showing through the peephole. That meant that nobody was home. She quickly put down her things, changed, dumped her empty lunch containers into the sink, and started poking around for food. On the table, there was a plastic container with boiled potatoes and chicken. The fridge yielded a fresh cucumber, so she grabbed that as well. Rhea quickly ate with her hands, as she was too lazy to get a fork, and was done in a few minutes. She ran to her room and woke up her computer.

The original plan was studying, but Rhea instead browsed prediction threads until nine and then forced herself to go to bed. The Reapings would start at eight AM, so she set an alarm for seven-thirty.

She didn't need it. Rhea woke up at seven-twenty, turned off the alarm, and immediately went to her laptop. She quickly found the stream but kept it muted, as Templesmith's voice made her want to shoot something, preferably herself. The rest of her family would be watching on the television in the living room, but her little siblings were loud and annoying when they had to sit still and watch. Better to put in her earbuds and watch the webstream on her computer. Rhea took out her phone, and sent a text to Aliviana.

"_You watching?"_

"_Course Im watching. U?"_

"_Flickerman's hair is better than last year's."_

"_Lol yeah that was highkey an abomination"_

"_U still obsessed with 5?"_

"_I'm not obsessed."_

"_Hhahaha"_

"_U said he was cute"_

"_Don't deny"_

"_It's starting! Turning off phone"_

Rhea put away her phone, annoyed at her friend's spelling. Aliviana never had any problems when handwriting, but a screen ruined everything somehow. Rhea shook her head, and looked at the screen. They were showing One. She unmuted the feed, adjusting her headphones.

"Are you sure you don't want to watch with us?" asked Mom from the living room.

"Yes!" she shouted back. Rhea turned her attention back to the screen. Fortunately, it wasn't mandatory to watch the endless recitations that preceded each District's Reaping. The crowd was already restless and tired. One had millions of people living in it, and just the Reaping-eligible didn't come close to fitting in the main square. From above, though, it was clear that they were carefully positioned. A fifteen-year-old girl and fourteen-year-old boy had their names called out but were immediately replaced by older volunteers. The same thing happened in Two, where an eighteen-year-old ran to replace a twelve-year-old who turned out to be his little brother. Rhea exhaled in relief. The little ones never had a chance, it was good when they were replaced with those that did. Three had two eighteen-year-olds Reaped and Four had two volunteers, but after that, she knew it would become a horrorshow. It was now the turn of Five, and she had an odd fondness for Five.

Seventeen-year-old Adam Slick didn't look too good, but fifteen-year-old Amber Heath looked tough and wiry. Rhea grabbed the money she had earned last summer from her little storage box and stuffed it in her wallet while keeping an eye on the feed. Josh Dirik sat on the stage, looking like a ghost next to the other Victors. She wished he could be happy. Maybe Heath could win. Would that help?

After that, it all fell off a cliff. Twelve-year-olds were Reaped and nobody volunteered, just as nobody stepped forward for the boy from Ten even though he limped badly. In Twelve, a sixteen-year-old volunteered to take the place of her little sister which was an insane relief, and then Haymitch Abernathy fell off the stage which was hilarious.

Her phone had been chiming the entire time, so she took and sorted through the barrage of texts while listening to the feed. Most of them were easy to deal with, so she left Aliviana's commentary to the end.

"_Did u see the girl from 2? She looks deadly"_

"_Hey thats ur beloved on the screen! Haha"_

"_u thik either of them can win?"_

"_oh no 2 12 year olds"_

"_bet u the limping one will make it to top 8"_

"_Ooh, volunteer from 12! this is gonna be awesme"_

"_Julius just texted me that 12 had their _

_last volunteer twenty years ago. Wow._

_And it really sucks for 6, they got no_

_chance. If the boy from 10 makes it to_

_top 8, I will die laughing. I think Heath has a _

_decent chance if the arena's good for survival._

_She looks smart. Slick seems too cowed,_

_but maybe he'll turn out to be a fighter. Who _

_are you gonna sponsor?"_

"_boy from 2 and girl from 12 cuz they_

_volunteered for their siblings. And boy from_

_10 for the meme"_

"_Ahahaha"_

"_u gonna watch the parade?"_

"_nah, I want to sleep. You can tell me Monday_

_morning what happened"_

And that was that. Rhea spent the rest of the weekend doing nothing on her laptop. She opened the chat her friends had and messaged them. Julius wasn't there at all. Aliviana was watching old recap videos while her sister was making bets online(the winners got imaginary Web points and fame in a forum where everyone was anonymous anyway). Rhea also poked around the forums and made some bets, though not for money (Five was making it to top 8, you heard it here first). The chat soon morphed into a six-way argument over who should win, and then it was time for the parade but Rhea went to bed instead. Sure, it was mandatory, but the chance that the Peacekeepers would run around the city making sure that nobody dared to be asleep was equal to zero.

The next morning, she dropped off the money into the donation box outside the main office. There were twenty-four boxes, one for each tribute. When one died the money would go the other tribute from their District, when both died, it would be put in the Mentor's account and saved for next year. Rhea donated five hundred dollars to Amber before heading up to their usual table outside the library. She got there second. Julius was there already, and he was maniacally texting.

"How was the parade?"

"Fuck if I know," he said with a grin. "I was too busy. We had two things happen. We finally bought out my cousin!"

His cousin had been turned into an Avox for spreading Rebel propaganda and had spent the past year in the deep sewers. She looked around to make sure nobody noticed his politically dangerous joy. Nobody, except maybe the portrait if it had suddenly gained sapience. Although maybe the country would be better off if the portrait took over.

"Did you get him reassigned?"

"Yeah," said Julius, nodding enthusiastically. "And he now lives with us and goes to work just like anyone else. Well, he isn't paid, so he's now a complete dependent, but we'll survive. And then the Peacekeepers turned up because of his brother's conspiracy theories - you know, the one about Thirteen." Only recycled footage was ever shown on the television, because the remote probes kept on saying the same thing and there wasn't a point to going out and filming when it was just an update on how everything was still the same. However, Julius' cousin was convinced that Thirteen was secretly still a thing and that was why nobody ever went there. "There was a lot of arguing, we spent the entire weekend just dealing with everything, I only had time to watch a five-minute recap. Did anything else crazy happen?"

"Nothing that wasn't in the recap. So what else happened?"

"They finally deciphered Portius' texts!"

"Um, what? Who's Portius?"

"Oh, crap, did I not tell you about that? He's the one who lived in the forest for two months-"

"Yeah, beyond the boundary! You told me about that. And then the Peacekeepers accused him of trying to go to the Districts and spread propaganda-"

There was no fence surrounding the Capitol. Technically speaking, you could run off to the Districts, but why would you want to do that? At least here, nobody starved.

"Yeah, yeah, but it's not that. In the forest, he found buried treasure. A metal box. Inside there were sheets of paper with stuff written on it in a weird language, and a _vinyl record_ in a case which turned out to contain music. Really nice music. Eventually, the historians at the State Library managed to figure out that the papers contained the lyrics to the songs, because of what repeated at what times. And now, they were able to transcribe the songs using that alphabet, and also ours! I _sang the songs!_"

At that moment, Aliviana and Ana walked up. "Did you see the parade last night?" demanded Aliviana.

"No," said Julius immediately, enthusiasm gone. "I was just telling Rhea what happened-" and then he quickly repeated what he had told her, excitement coming back. "So basically, they transcribed the songs into English, and then tried to match it with the other alphabet."

That seemed pretty cool, but it was also the most useless thing ever. Although that was kind of Julius' thing. His only goal in life was to be allowed into the State Library and learn about the world before the Dark Days.

"So what happened during the parade?" Rhea asked Aliviana, who was practically jumping out of her skin in anticipation.

"The tributes from Twelve were holding hands and were on fire!"

Huh, that was pretty weird. "Holding hands?"

"Yeah! I can pull up a video-"

Julius butted in. "One second! Ugh, have mercy, I only watched the Reaping five-minute recap, can we go about this in chronological order?"

"Oh yeah!" said Ana. "Who do you think will win?"

He grinned. Quickly, Julius crooked his finger and turned on his phone. His other hand flicked over the screen. "So, here's the thing. Expected winners same as always - the volunteers. Not sure about the girl from Twelve, though, that was pure replacement of someone weak and valued. She looks quite strong but I don't know from what, her survival and combat skills could be on any level. The rest are darkhorse possibilities at best. The boy from Eleven, both from Three, the boy from Twelve, the girl from Seven-"

"The girl from Five," butted in Rhea. If Julius didn't think she stood a chance, did she really?

Fortunately, he nodded. "Her too. That's basically all that look strong enough to fight and survive. The boy from Ten could actually live quite long if he chose a hide-and-stalk strategy, he's big and healthy. However, he could easily be chased down if someone picked him as a target first thing."

Wow. She hadn't considered that the boy from Ten stood a chance in any way, shape, or form. By now, there was a small crowd gathered around Julius, and he was basking in the attention. Some of the girls were staring at him, and Rhea rolled her eyes. He only liked girls that could argue with him, but nobody in the school knew even half of the facts that he used to prop up his arguments. He looked up and sighed. "What, do you want an overview of every single tribute?"

Everyone nodded. "Aw, come on, I was going to study. Anyway, I'm only going off what they look like and how they composed themselves. The weepy ones might toughen up, the strong ones might turn out to know nothing about combat. I might be able to create a decent prediction table after the training scores and a better one after the interviews, but it is all a crapshoot until I see the arena." Julius was waving his hands around madly at this point. "Plus, someone might pull a Mason again, or there might be a flood - more than you expect is up to chance. I think the stronger tributes have gotten laxer now, they tend to underestimate the weaker tributes and it could definitely bite them. But seriously, it's all about the arena."

Rhea saw her chance. "If it's like 72 again, it's gonna be all about control of the Cornucopia. I think it hinges on whether there will be food and water outside of it."

Julius nodded. "There's no way they will have an unsurvivable landscape, though. I think they learned the lesson there."

"Do you think they'll have an artificial arena this time?" asked Aria, another one of Rhea's friends and fellow sufferers of uni apps. She had rainbow hair and switched between ten different pairs of earrings. Today, hers were little flames. "It's been five years in a row of real landscapes."

"No way," said Julius. "They're saving up the creativity for next year. For now, they want to stick to the tried and true. Artificial arenas either work really well or really badly, I think the Gamemakers don't want to risk too often. And the Head Engineer, what's her face, has five kids, she doesn't want to mess around too much. Neither do the Gamemakers, I bet, not after that scandal with Crane." This was absolutely not the place to say things like that. "They could end up with Fifty or with Twenty-seven, it's too risky."

Fifty had been the one with the poisonous everything, but she didn't know Twenty-seven. Fortunately, someone else asked the question. Julius sat up straight and relaxed slightly into his chair. He loved to tell people things they did not know.

"That was actually the year they first had interviews, which made it even worse. The arena was seven interconnected small rooms on three levels of a building. An hourglass, the Cornucopia in the middle, three above, three below. It was also absolute blackness. There wasn't any visible light at all, the cameras had to be specially rented because there had always been enough light at night before to not necessitate infrared cameras or whatever. Basically, it was boring and it was over in less than a day. And everyone had gotten attached to the tributes after the interviews, so it sucked for them, watching tributes they were cheering for die without knowing it was them or who was even on screen at the moment." Rhea disliked the interviews for the same reason. It seemed like a mistake, and the government's mistakes always stressed her out. Nearly all people with Rebel sympathies stated that it was watching the interviews and growing attached that had made them that way. The Games weren't a reality show, they were a warning to everyone about the price of rebellion. Monetizing them made the meaning get lost.

Julius was still going on. "Anyway, I put money on the arena being natural. The girl from Eleven has more of a chance than you could imagine if it's familiar to her, by the way. She grew up around food, she knows what's edible. If the arena even vaguely resembles what grows in Eleven - and if the bloodbath doesn't kill them - then I say the girl gets top 8 and the boy could win. Also, we should get to class."

On that weird note, Rhea went to Literature class. It was just time to work on their final essays, and she was done already. She watched the recap of the parade and talked to her neighbours instead of studying for biology. Unfortunately, none of them shared her fondness for Heath. Most of them were going to be cheering for the likely winners, like One, Two, Four, and Twelve.

Several days passed that way until the day that the training scores would be announced. Rhea was parked in the library with her friends, as there was no class during mandatory watching. They could have gone down to the auditorium and watched it on the big television, but Rhea was perfectly content without the idiotic jokes of some other students. And it was nice to have Julius and Aliviana give their analysis without hordes asking questions.

The video suddenly started playing, but it wasn't the actual scores yet. They were now doing interviews with some of the mentors. Julius was actually taking notes. He seemed way more dedicated this year, the opposite of Rhea.

"Are you actually going to be betting?" asked Gaius. He always worried about everyone.

Julius grinned. "I _am _eighteen now. My Web bets have been solid in the past years, might as well go big."

"I'll bet against you, then!" said Aliviana. "I actually predicted the winner before the arena last time!"

"It does not take intelligence to predict that the boy from Two will win!"

"And I got twenty of the final rankings right!" Aliviana was refusing to concede.

"Alright, that was actually fucking amazing. Still, it was a boring arena."

Ana looked up from the computer, shocked. "How was it _boring_? It was almost all fighting!"

Julius smiled. "Exactly," he said, stabbing the table with a finger. "Boring. It's obvious who will win in a fight. But survival...who can tell? When will the mutts be sent in? What kind? Will the Gamemakers unleash traps or let the conditions run their course? Who will outlast - the small or the big? There are so many variables in an arena that kills. In an easy arena, it's just stalk, stab, win. Boring." His eyes were shining now.

"That's an odd perspective," said Gaius. "Isn't combat way more fun to watch than tributes slowly dying of thirst?"

"I think you'll have to agree to disagree here," said Ana. "It's starting."

The scores began to be announced, Julius commenting on everything. "So One, Two, and Four all got eight to ten, that's expected, nothing changes," he said after the scores for Four were announced. "Three, dunno. A three and a five. Maybe they suck, maybe they are pretending to suck, maybe what they didn't demonstrate will end up keeping one of them alive. Nothing I can say."

"You can say 'Seventy-second Hunger Games'," butted in Rhea. "And 'Josh Dirik'. He got a three."

"I refuse to accept the possibility that this will be a survival arena."

Slick got a four, Heath a seven.

"The girl might stand a chance."

Most of the rest got around a five, but the girl from Eleven got a seven, the boy from Twelve an eight, and the girl from Twelve an eleven.

Julius smirked. "Told you they look good."

Aliviana rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure the girl from Eleven will absolutely destroy in the bloodbath."

"She's going to run in the opposite direction of the Cornucopia."

"Unless there is no other way to get food."

"For the billionth time, the arena will be easy to survive in!" Rhea laughed with the rest. It was too much fun to rile up Julius when he was confident. She looked at the clock, and grabbed her bag. Now all there was left was the interviews, and then the Games would actually start. And exams, too. The math exam was in four days. She walked to class, and felt the pressure slowly crushing her.

Worn out from all the studying, Rhea went to bed early that night and fell asleep to the beginning of the interview. She woke up the next morning to several passionate texts from Aliviana.

"_Katniss and peeta are together!"_

"_oh no"_

"_noooooo"_

"_who do i cheer for? aaaaaa"_

It took Rhea several seconds to remember who in the world were Katniss and Peeta. She quickly checked the news to get the real story, and rolled her eyes.

"_Eh, I highly doubt both of them will survive the first day."_

"_And they aren't together."_

At school, of course, half of the conversation was about just that. The other half, fortunately, was predictions. At their usual table outside the library, Julius was on his computer. Rhea looked over his shoulder. He was placing bets in a Web betting-house.

"Are you seriously spending money on this?" she asked. He almost never went out for lunch, how could he afford this?

Julius shrugged. "I've been saving up money for this for years. Aliviana sent me her ranking prediction and it sucks, can you tell her that? I don't have her number."

"_Julius thinks your predictions suck."_

Rhea put her phone in her pocket and thought about the Games. Wow, she had really fallen out of the loop this year. As a small child she had been the only one in her class who actually _watched _the Games, later she had stayed up late watching and discussing, and now she suddenly didn't care. Exams were more important.

"I didn't watch the interviews. What happened?"

Her friends filled her in until it was time to go to the auditorium. The Games were about to begin! There would be two hours of mandatory watching (well, more like two and a half), and then most of her classes would have the Games on because it's not like they were doing anything, anyway.

"Julius!" hissed Aliviana. "A dollar on the arena being deadly!"

"Fine!"

The auditorium was packed. Even the kids like Rhea who skipped assemblies were there. You could actually get arrested for not watching, or so she had heard. There were enough seats for everyone, but barely. They suffered through standing for the anthem, listening to a speech on Rebel saboteurs - all of the ceremony - while getting more and more excited. The big screen flashed to life, showing a concrete wall. The tributes were in their cylinders! Pity that they were unable to hear the final predictions before, but whatever. It was about to start!

Everyone cheered as the image rose and rose, and Rhea's heart sped up as she saw bright sunlight - and a forest in summer!

Julius was on his feet, screaming in joy.

"I WIN!" he shrieked, and fell back into his seat. "That's a dollar from you, Aliviana, and a few hundred from the Web!" He closed his mouth and took deep breaths. Rhea turned to the screen to see that the countdown was already starting. The camera was panning to show all of the tributes, but a small image in the corner showed a view from the top, with tributes marked in glowing dots. The tributes stood on a small open field that was surrounded with a pine forest, a lake, and a cliff that led to a grain field. The camera panned to Heath. She looked good.

The school counted down with the glowing clock on the Cornucopia. "FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!"

And it was on. Rhea saw Heath running around the outside of the ring of items before the screen split to show the various fights taking place. They boy from Eleven killed the boy from Four before running away. The other volunteers (except the girl from Twelve) fought to get to each other and stood in a circle, guarding each other's backs. Some of the other kids, especially the younger ones, would be grimacing at the deaths, but Rhea was just dizzy from trying to keep track. Eventually, she took her eyes from the screen. Julius was on his phone, poking at the screen with his finger. One eye on the phone screen, one eye on the television. His teeth were clenched. She took a deep breath and looked around as the volunteers and the boy from Twelve were finishing off the dying that littered the ground. They had been alive just half an hour ago.

Some of the kids were hiding their faces in their hands. They would be roasted for this by their teachers, that was for sure. The Portrait gazed down in disapproval at their conduct. Rhea suddenly remembered the elementary-school joke about the portraits all having cameras in them. She grimaced and looked away. Julius was now doing commentary and it was way more fun to listen to than Templesmith's.

"That's odd. The boy from Twelve got an eight, that doesn't seem high enough for the rest of the pack. Still, that's very impressive for someone like him." The pack went into the woods to hunt, and the camera now showed brief clips of the other tributes walking around. Most were in the forest but a few had climbed off the cliff and were in the field. The camera cut back to the pack. They found two tributes and finished them off quickly. "Also, I told you that the girl from Eleven and both from Twelve stand a chance."

"Yes, yes, we know how good you are at this," said Ana, rolling her eyes and poking her sister for no reason. The rest of the mandatory viewing was replays of deaths and narrow escapes and shots of tributes walking or sitting.

In fact, the rest of the day was like that. Rhea went to class but did nothing other than watching the Games, just like everyone else in Panem probably. When she got home, she turned on the feed on her computer and watched it while pretending to study. She went to bed before the anthem and, of course, ended up with a lot to catch up on. Quickly watching a recap, she texted Aliviana.

"_The boy from 12 is a corpse. The rest will_

_finish him off as soon as a couple more are_

_dead. And did you see how the girl overheard_

_everything? hahaha" _

Then, she texted Julius.

"_Is 11 dead a lot?"_

However, she only got the answer from Julius himself that morning at school.

"It's pretty average," he said. "Rare for someone from Four to die in the first day, but it's just as rare that someone from Eleven destroys like that."

For the next few days, nothing really happened in the Games, which was good. Rhea had more than enough to worry about without that. Exams were starting that week, and she was spending all of her time flipping through bio notes and doing endless problems for physics and chem. The first exam was math, though, which she wasn't too worried about. Calc had sounded horrifying before the year, but now it was about infinity times better than chem or bio. Or Lit. That was just legal torture.

The exam went horribly. She forgot to memorize how to find the derivative using first principles and also did not remember its definition. For that, she scribbled something about finding the slope at a point right before handing in the exam an hour before it was over. At least the actual problems hadn't been too bad, but Rhea had gotten unreasonable answers for a few so that sucked. And it was followed by the Lit exam, which was insidious. They just had to read a piece of Rebel propaganda and explain why it was false - but it was so subtle, it was hard to come up with a rebuttal that wasn't addressed by it. Was this real propaganda or was someone reliable asked to write it? Were the teachers going to report anyone who wasn't scathing enough?

Ah well, who cared. It was over now. At home, Rhea watched the Games for a few minutes before deciding there was a better way to celebrate.

"Mom?" she asked, leaning out of her bedroom door. "I'm going out to meet Aliviana."


	2. After

_One and a half years later_

For a few minutes, Rhea walked in the direction of Aliviana's building. Then she kept on going. Mom and Dad had gone on and on about how it wasn't safe, especially now that they were next in line for evacuation, but that just made her resolve firmen. The more dangerous, the better the chances of finding food or valuables in abandoned apartments. Of course, she didn't tell Mom and Dad about that. They thought she was actually meeting with her friends.

As she walked, she saw fewer and fewer people. Most would be at work, or standing in food lines. There were Peacekeepers patrolling, but they paid her no mind. There were plenty of people who demanded to be allowed into the evacuated zone to get something from their apartments, she didn't stick out. Rhea passed the signs and walked down completely empty streets. Crunch, crunch, crunch went the pebbles underfoot. The sounds of distant combat. She always heard it, outside or at home or in the hospital she volunteered at. Sometimes she thought she could hear the explosions through the screaming.

There was a corpse on the ground, without a mark on it. Probably a really weird pod. Pods weren't supposed to be activated so close to unevacuated territory, but Rhea tried to be careful. Although how could you be careful when literally anything could be a pod?

The frontline was getting closer and closer. Anxiety squeezed Rhea's heart. She picked a building at random and smashed the front door, which was glass, with a brick from a nearby pile of rubble that had once been a building. She walked inside and smashed the next door, too. She had lockpicks to open up apartment doors, but no way of getting through electronic locks. Rhea walked up the stairs to the second floor, and picked the first apartment she saw. It took a while to open the door, as she wasn't very good with the lockpicks, but eventually, it opened. She stepped inside.

It was a normal apartment, though rather messy. Rhea darted to the kitchen, poking through the cupboards and shelves. Nothing. There could be something hidden, though. She methodically went through the apartment, looking for hiding places. In the bedroom, she moved the heavy cabinet, cringing at the noise.

Wait. Those were footsteps in the hall. Rhea froze, heart in her mouth, feeling like she was going to either throw up or fall over dead. Footsteps getting closer. The door was opening. Rhea didn't dare breathe, didn't move a millimetre, please be another marauder, she could deal with them, please-

"All right, Capitolian," barked a voice, "you want to live - get on your knees with your hands on your head!"

Rhea didn't even notice herself obey the commands. The Rebellion's soldiers were rumoured to be prowling around evacuated zones, but Rhea had never seen one. Until now.

Two soldiers, one tall and dark, the other shorter and lighter, walked in, guns raised. They wore identical grey uniforms and emotionless facial expressions. Were they going to shoot her after all? Rhea thought she couldn't get any more terrified, but now, tears were prickling at her eyes as her heart went haywire. _Why did I have to go to this stupid building Mom and Dad are gonna kill me-_

"What are you doing here?" asked the short soldier. She lowered her gun, and after a moment's pause, so did the other.

"I-I-I-uh-I-" She tried to speak, but the words were getting stuck in her throat, and what if they got fed up with her stuttering and just shot her-

"Breathe!" snapped the tall soldier. "We're not going to shoot you if you don't do anything foolish. Now, why are you here?"

Rhea took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. _They won't shoot. They won't shoot. Why couldn't I have stayed at home today?_ She wiped at her tears and started talking. "I wanted to go through abandoned apartments and find food and valuables," she said honestly. She could think of no better excuse.

"Can you do anything?" asked the short soldier. "What are you, fifteen?"

Rhea shook her head. "Nineteen."

"Do you work?" continued the short soldier.

"Well, of course," said Rhea, baffled. What was she supposed to do if not work? Didn't they have spies that told them even the schoolchildren were desperate for any way to earn extra food? "I'm a second-year nursing student and volunteer at a hospital. I'm certified in First Aid." Wait, were they asking this to figure out if she was potentially useful or not? "Um, everyone says I follow directions well, don't get grossed out by anything, and stay calm in a crisis." The short soldier snorted.

The tall soldier rolled his eyes at her. "She's got a gun to her head. Two guns. I doubt anyone can stay calm in that situation. Alright, Capitolite, can you do anything else?"

"Uh, yeah. I worked as a cleaner for two summers. I'm good at cleaning. I like to clean. And I'm a good nurse, too. Well, not a nurse yet, but everyone says I'll definitely be a good one." Was that enough? The Rebellion probably needed medical professionals, but would they really trust her with their wounded?

"Do you support the regime?" asked the tall soldier.

"Fuck no," said Rhea instinctively. It felt good to be able to say it out loud. The soldiers chuckled.

"Good enough for a start. Now, stand up." They quickly patted her down and took away everything in her pockets. "Alright, you can keep everything else for now-" What did they mean? Her clothes? "-and you won't like what happens to you if you try to run away." Well, at least it looked like she was going to live.

The soldiers each grabbed one of her elbows and led her out of the building. One said something into a comm, but it seemed to be mostly jargon. Then, they led her into another building, one she had never been into, and down into the basement. Then they walked down a tunnel. Rhea had never been in the underground paths before, although she had always wanted to. The soldiers leading her hadn't been in her plans, though.

"Fuck," she hissed as realization hit her.

"What is it?" asked the short soldier.

"My parents don't know where I went. They're going to kill me." The soldiers laughed.

"They'll find out," said the tall soldier. "I'm sure they'll be relieved you're alright."

Rhea shook her head. "They'll die of shame." Maybe she should just stay with the Rebellion forever.

"Why?" asked the short soldier. "You realized what was what and surrendered to the winning side. Are they fanatics?"

"No," said Rhea. "I just...I don't know."

They had come to a staircase, and the soldiers led her up. The building was mostly a ruin. Some pods destroyed entire blocks, others left intact corpses. There was no way to tell without a map. Did the Rebellion have maps? Probably.

There were Rebellion soldiers everywhere now. Was this one of their bases? Rhea realized that she knew nothing about what it was really like. Hopefully that wouldn't bite her. A tall young woman with tan skin, narrow eyes, and short black hair approached.

"Soldier Martins, Soldier Rav, this is the prisoner?"

"Yes," said the tall soldier. Rhea wasn't sure which one he was. "Here are her things. She's probably a Category Two, but I think she'll try to go for One. Definitely skilled, though."

The woman led Rhea to a shabby building labelled 'INTERROGATIONS'. Rhea gulped. Were they going to torture her? She was willing to say anything even without it. She remembered all the rumours about The Building That Could Not Be Photographed, the kitchen jokes that were no longer funny now that she was the one facing beatings and starvation and all sorts of humiliation and-

"What's your name?" asked the woman. "I'm Stephanie."

What? That wasn't what she had expected. "My name is Rhea Jag."

"Do you mind if I call you Rhea?"

"Um, sure." Stephanie waved a card in front of a scanner and opened the door. She led Rhea to a room with a soldier or guard or whatever this person was.

"Take off your shoes, coat, and belt." Rhea complied. At least her trousers sat well enough on her without the belt. "The sweater, too." Were they going to strip-search her? She shivered, from the cold as well as fear. "Alright, Interrrogator, you can have her," he said, waving what was probably some sort of detector around her.

"Sorry about the sweater," said Stephanie. "We have to make sure nobody's trying to smuggle in a weapon. Would you like some tea?"

The fuck kind of interrogation was this? "Uh, sure." The guard left, carrying her clothes.

"Let's start with something basic. What do you do?"

Rhea took the thermos Stephanie offered her. The tea was hot and tasty. "Well, before the Rebellion broke out, I was a nursing student. Well, I'm still a student, but I have to also spend a lot of time at the hospital helping with the battle casualties."

Stephanie wrote something down. Rhea knew she had to impress her, but what were the right answers?

"Did you like it?"

"I don't know. I mean, it was rewarding and felt right, but it's super stressful and sometimes you just can't help someone."

"But you want to help the Rebellion?"

"It's the only chance I have," Rhea said honestly.

"So you do not support the Rebellion?"

Fuck. Was she trying to lure her into a trap? "I mean, you did invade us. And you're killing us. How can I support you?"

"Do you disagree with the entire idea of rebelling?"

"After the clips you aired on the television? Nobody sane would disagree with the idea of rebelling. But before - I mean, I'm just an apolitical citizen." Stephanie's face seemed to darken for a second when Rhea said that last bit, but it instantly vanished.

"So you believe our propos?"

"I mean, it's not like we had no idea about that stuff. Everyone suspected there were things going on at a deeper level than we knew. It's just that we could only talk freely in the kitchen. My Dad loved to tell politically dangerous jokes."

"Can you give an example?" Stephanie was scribbling away quickly.

"Of a political joke?" Rhea asked, baffled. Could she even remember one on the spot?

"That would be nice."

"Well, I think I remember one. An old woman finds out her pension is being raised and says 'Thank God!' A Peacekeeper says no, you can't say that, you have to say 'Thank Snow!' The old woman asks, but what if something happens to President Snow? The Peacekeeper answers, Then you can say 'thank God!'"

Stephanie giggled and wrote something down. "Could one get in trouble for jokes like that?"

"Depends?" Rhea asked, trying to remember. "Like, my mom could have been fired, because she was a teacher, but my dad would just have gotten chewed out. Jokes about the President were not as harshly condemned, though."

"Would you say that jokes about the regime were riskier than jokes about the President, who, after all, would eventually be replaced?" asked Stephanie. Rhea had never thought about it that way before, but it wasn't entirely accurate.

"I wouldn't put it that way," she said, struck by the absurdity of the situation. Was this really an interrogation? They were just telling political jokes, and it was definitely fun to say them out loud, without worrying that her sister would overhear and then repeat it in public without understanding. "It wasn't exactly allowed to speculate about Snow's upcoming death. There were all these stories about how he was the best at everything, better than the experts, so we'd joke that even unto death, he'd be more alive than the living. But yeah, jokes about the Games or the situation with the Districts were much more harshly punished. I think it's because of the instability that followed the old president's death, as everything pretty much rotated around him. Basically, you could be made into an Avox for implying the Games were bad, and killed for publicly speaking out against them."

"Do you know any?"

"Jokes about the Games? I've heard tons, but can't recall them right now." Rhea tried desperately to recall, but nothing came up. "There were jokes about how the kids from the Capitol would do if thrown into the Arena, but I don't recall any punchlines."

"What about jokes about the Districts?"

"You mean politically dangerous ones?" She suddenly remembered her favourite joke, the one Mala had told the group in a dangerously loud voice, purple eyes gleaming. "Alright, so President Snow decides to visit the outer Districts and see what the people think of him. He's being driven down a country road in Ten, when the driver hits a pig. He makes the driver go to the farmer and apologize, so he looks good. The driver goes, comes back, and says that the farmers weren't upset and even shared their meal with him. They drive on, and then they hit another pig. The driver goes to apologize again, comes back, and says that the farmers shook his hand and poured him tea. They keep on driving, and hit another pig. This time, Snow follows the driver, to see what's going on. The driver knocks on the door of the house and says, 'I'm President Snow's driver, the pig is dead!'"

Stephanie laughed. "Did a lot of people tell jokes like this?"

Rhea shrugged. "I mean, anyone could see that we weren't allowed to speak out against the government and were being kept placated with the fact that at least our children weren't being forced to kill each other."

"But there was no wide-scale resistance? From what I've seen, everyone seemed to enjoy the Games."

"There were defectors," Rhea said desperately.

Stephanie shook her head. "That was more on the individual plane. Why did the average person do nothing?"

How was she supposed to explain it? "We had no chance of changing anything. And if things are happening, why not try to enjoy it instead of trying to knock down a wall with your head?"

"Did you personally enjoy watching the Games?" Stephanie's gaze seemed to harden.

There was no escape. Rhea knew she had to answer. But how? How? How was she supposed to explain the sheer normality of everything, the way that one couldn't find things they grew up with strange? "I mean, I grew up with them. They were normal to me. Most parents didn't let their little children actually watch the live streaming, but mine didn't stop me when I wanted to. As I turned twelve there was definitely this odd feeling that hey, those are kids just like me out there, but I thought of them as just District kids. As something different." She took a deep breath, trying to calm down her heart as she explained things she had only thought about before.

"It's just that...this was everywhere. You couldn't get away with it. I used to be annoyed that it was such a show, you know? Not because I thought it was immoral, but because I thought it ruined the message. The Games were a warning about the danger of rebellion, and I thought it was dumb to turn it into a television drama." Rhea realized she was crying. Why was she crying?

Stephanie handed her a tissue. "Did you, or anyone else you know, sincerely speak out against the Games from a moral standpoint?"

"I don't know. A friend of mine once said something like 'I don't understand why we need to make a bunch of terrified people hate us even more', but she was always going overboard with harsh jokes and saying really extreme things to provoke people. We told her to be silent before she was made silent, but I don't think any of us really thought-"

"That's the thing!" said Stephanie. "Thoughtlessness. Would you say that was the general attitude towards the Games? 'Well, it's not us standing there terrified that our children will be taken away and it's not us dying for a crime allegedly committed barely within living memory, and it's a good show anyway, might as well have some fun!' Was that how you viewed the Games? Did you simply not stop to consider that the twenty-three children who died each year were children just like yours?"

Rhea didn't know what to say. "My friend, the one who said the strange things, she would often say that twenty-three children is nothing compared to the children who die because of the bad conditions in the Districts. Like the famine of 31-32. We weren't supposed to know about that."

"Forcing children to murder each other is on a different level than letting them starve, wouldn't you say?" Stephanie asked with barely concealed anger.

The interrogations continued for another week at least. Rhea lost count of the days.

* * *

When Stephanie had squeezed out of Rhea more than she had thought she could give, Rhea was taken out of the room. "The interrogation is over," said Stephanie. "I have talked to the higher-ups, and they say you will be put to work here in the base." Well, that was a relief. Rhea felt herself relax for the first time since capture.

"Thank you," said Rhea.

"Well, you're welcome. Now, you will be searched-" _what, again? _"-and then sent on. It was very nice meeting you." Stephanie shook her hand and left down the hall. Two bored women led her into a small room.

"Undress," said one.

"But they searched me when I got here!"

"That only detected certain materials. Do not make me repeat instructions twice!" said one of the women with an impatient, steely tone. Rhea shrugged and undressed. It was probably going to be like a medical examination. She stood naked in the middle of the room, glad that at least the door was closed.

"Open your mouth." A flashlight was aimed inside, and gloved fingers poked at her teeth. Would they be annoyed that she had bad breath? She hadn't been able to brush her teeth for who knows how long.

"Stand on this line." Rhea stood on it, confused.

"Put your hands on the table. Remain standing on the line." What? She obeyed, awkwardly bending over. Oh, so that's why-.

Her face burned from embarrassment as fingers poked inside her. Rhea closed her eyes. Why couldn't she had just stayed at home? Then there would have been no endless questioning, no unexpected gynecological examination or whatever the fuck else this was suppposed to be.

"Sit down on the table." Rhea tried not to look at the doctors or whoever else they were. It wasn't her fault that she hadn't been allowed to shower during the questioning! But still, she couldn't quite look them in the eye. This was fucking mortifying. Aliviana would die laughing. Mala would never let her live it down. Rhea had a vivid mental image of her friends pressing for details with facial expressions of amusement and horror at the same time.

Rhea was shaved almost bald. Well, she had always kind of wanted short hair, but had never actually gotten it cut because medium-length hair didn't require regular haircuts. Maybe she would like it this way.

"Go shower and put on this clothing. You have five minutes."

The fuck kind of shower was that supposed to be? Rhea barely managed to rinse her hair, never mind soaping it up. She pulled on the new clothing, which was all grey and loose (though she liked grey and loose) and paused when she saw the label on the shirt.

In District Thirteen, they must have also numbered prisoners.

Rhea shook her head to dispel the weird spike of anxiety. Of course they numbered prisoners. Sure, the interrogation had been weirdly friendly, but she was just a random student. The important people would be getting the Rebellion equivalent of the basements of The Building That Could Not Be Photographed, while insignificant Rhea could be questioned over hot tea. And numbering prisoners seemed like an easy way to identify them. Still, this seemed like an additional 'fuck you' on the part of the Rebellion. Tributes had been reduced to just their District numbers. Arrested dissidents and Rebels had been stripped of their individuality and even their names. Of course Thirteen was going to smack them over the head with it.

Fully dressed, Rhea, otherwise known as 1387 (was this just the prisoners from the Capitol or were their own criminals included in the tally? Or were they giving out completely random numbers?) stepped back into the examination room. One of the doctors pointed towards the table. Rhea's anxiety spiked until she realized there were a coat and boots on the table, as well as a hat with earflaps.

Oddly enough, that shocked her more than the numbering. Rhea had heard rumours of what went on in prisons. Coats were only mentioned in them as objects to be deprived of. Well, Thirteen must have different priorities. Rhea pulled on the coat (which also had the number on it), which was way too big. It reached her mid-thigh, and the sleeves swallowed her hands. And the pockets contained gloves! Maybe they were really going to let her work.

She was ushered into yet another room, but this time, there were several people in it, sitting on the floor. All were in the same grey, which appeared to be the only colour in Thirteen. One, a young-looking person, waved her over. He was pale, and the grey of his clothing just made him look half-dead.

"Um, hello," said Rhea.

"Hello," said the man quietly. "I'm Alex. What's your name?"

"Rhea."

"Did you also give up?"

"I mean, they caught me robbing an empty apartment and told me to surrender or die. Not much of a choice."

"Oh," said Alex. "I actually sought them out. I was in the Rebellion for a couple of years, but there's nobody who can vouch for me, so I was processed like the rest of the Cat Two's."

Rhea had no idea what a Cat Two was, but the mention of the Rebellion made her want to shrivel up and die. "You were actually in the Rebellion for years? I just cracked political jokes in the kitchen," she said with a lot of self-pity.

"Eh, you didn't miss out on much. I was actually arrested once. Only got off after my parents forked over all of our savings and took out tens of thousands in loans for bribes." Alex cracked a sad smile. "When they get their hands on me, I'll wish I had never been born." Rhea giggled. She felt the same way.

"So, is this better than Capitol jail?" A part of her needed to know.

Alex ran a hand through his short hair. "Well, this time I wasn't sexually assaulted while being searched, so yeah, I'd say it's better." His face was bright red.

Rhea cringed. "Um, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Sorry for asking."

Another prisoner walked in and sat down in the corner. Alex watched them blankly, then seemed to snap back to reality. "Nah, nah, it's no problem. No permanent damage done." _By my question or by the search in the Capitol jail?_ Rhea had enough brains to not ask. Mala definitely would have asked.

"Did you notice that they only searched us _after _the questioning?" she asked instead, switching the subject.

"Uh, how could I not notice?" he said with what she hoped was a light tone.

"I just don't understand why. What if someone actually brings in a weapon?"

"Maybe they're trying to provoke us into revealing the weapon so they have an excuse to kill us? I mean, I don't think you can smuggle in a sizable bomb in your ass. Although I'm not an expert in bombs. Or asses. And if we kill ourselves, that's one less enemy." That sounded harsh as anything, but Rhea supposed you could do anything in war. Wasn't that the point of it?

Rhea wanted to keep on talking, but then several other prisoners walked in, followed by a couple of soldiers led by an officer. They all looked to be on the older side, as old as her parents at the very least, but were still obviously people you shouldn't mess with. Some of them clearly had been seriously wounded. These must have been soldiers who couldn't fight anymore, but who could deal with a group of prisoners.

"All right then, kids!" he said. _Kids? _Some of the people there looked to be twenty years his seniors. "You're all ordinary Capitolites, and skilled to boot. We can use people like you, and use you we will. You're all being put to work, starting now. Every reliable prisoner frees up a pair of hands for more useful work - but do something that makes you seem unreliable, and you will regret it." Who decided what 'unreliable' meant? Rhea felt anxious again. At this rate, she'd have a heart attack before the war ended. From the faces of everyone else, they were thinking the same thing.

The officer sighed. "Don't look so nervous! You're the smart ones, who went over to the right side. We won't forget it. And you, don't forget you're Category 2. You're not criminals in our eyes, just prisoners of war. I know you're smart, smart enough to have known better." Rhea wanted to die. "Just do your job, and everything will be fine. If something worries you, ask for Lieutenant Vance, that's me. Don't blindly do what you're told, but I won't stand for childish boundary-testing. Alright, when your number is called, follow the soldier."

Rhea's number was called second, Alex's fourth. There were four of them trailing one guard, who said that they were going to the hospital. Well, that was good news at last, and at least she knew someone. And just being outside after so long was amazing. It was a bit cold, but Rhea basked in the feel of the sharp wind on exposed skin.

Blinking in the light of the overcast day - she hadn't seen the sun since the interrogation began - she asked Alex, "Do you work in medicine?"

"Kind of?" he said. "I'm a nursing student."

"Same! I'm in second year."

"No way!" he said, grinning. "Same! Did you take Chem 100-"

"Chem 100 was cooked up in the basements of the Building," said a voice in the tone of a student complaining about the hardships of the education they valued more than anything in Panem. "And Antonius probably doubles as a torturer in his time off. Who the fuck thinks those lecture slides make any sense? And then he doesn't even follow them! I'm a fourth-year, and I swear I still break out in a sweat at the thought of it." The speaker was a dark youth who looked too young to be a fourth-year.

Alex's grin got wider. "Bit of an odd place for a reunion. What about you?" he asked the fourth person, a short, older woman.

"I'm a nurse at the Central Hospital, Cordelia's my name," she said. "You children stay close and listen to me, and you won't have any trouble!" she added with a slight smile.

"No way," said the youth. "Can you be my reference when we get back? I'm Jo, by the way."

"You are most definitely not getting back in time for the application cycle," said the guard.

"You know about apps?" asked Alex. "How?"

The guard smiled. "I used to live in the Capitol. Then I realized what sort of place it was. I got in touch with some people, ran to Thirteen, and thought I'd never be back."

_I could have done something_, thought Rhea. _But I didn't_. Were midterms really more important than everything else? How could she have thought that?

Rhea looked around, and saw a person being led in handcuffs and with a bag over their head towards them. "Soldier Marks!" said the soldier leading him. "This man claims he was in the Rebellion with you. Do you know him?" She tore the bag off his head, and Marks looked like he was about to faint. So did the man. They stared at each other for a good minute, slowly approaching each other, reaching out to hold hands.

"Ben?" whispered Marks. "It's been so long!" They suddenly embraced, clutching at each other like a lifeline, tears in their eyes.

Ben tried to smile. "It's not like we haven't talked-"

"A covert message once a year? You call that talk! You stupid, crazy, brave man, I told you to come with me, but no, you were too courageous to run-"

"_I _was courageous? You were the one who ran off with a near-stranger, chasing myths, Ant, you fearless, idiotic idealist, I've wanted to tell you how much I love you every day for the past thirty years-"

The soldier who had brought Ben over interrupted. "Alright, then, Soldier Marks, Cat One for the prisoner?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Why did he call a woman 'sir'?" hissed Alex.

"It's Thirteen, who knows why they do things? Or maybe they're not a woman," whispered Cordelia.

Rhea was too busy thinking, and wishing she wasn't. This man had left his beloved to fight for what was right. And she had been too scared to tell jokes in a voice louder than a whisper, lest she have problems at uni. What a monumental waste of space she was.

"Very well, Soldier. Carry on."

"Yes, sir!" said Marks, smiling widely. He turned to face the prisoners. "You, move along now. It's time for you to start earning your keep."

They were led between old houses that had been converted to barracks and prefab housing that looked sturdy despite having been thrown up in a hurry. There were groups of soldiers marching, soldiers squatting around small fires, soldiers being carried in stretchers or limping along. Rhea saw the occasional prisoner hurrying to their task, head down. Everyone was dressed in the same grey, and it was hard to tell people apart. Stripped of any individuality, prisoners from the Capitol looked just like the people from administration. She ran her hand over her short hair. Rhea had never had any body modifications or even worn makeup out of sheer laziness and cheapness, but now, she wished there was something about her to make her stand out in this mass. Although, it was probably better not to stand out where Thirteen was involved. She'd just have to keep her head down and see what they demanded.

Rhea realized she was hungry, but kept quiet. They'd feed her eventually if they wanted her to work. And the food here was really tasty.

They walked for a little bit longer. Rhea was by now completely lost and hoped someone would walk her to wherever they would be living after work ended. She wondered what time it was. The sky was overcast, but it felt like late morning. That would mean...how many hours of work? At the hospital, she had volunteered for twelve-hour shifts. Would they make her work during the day only, or into the night? Would she even get enough sleep?

Rhea was snapped out of her thoughts by the approach of someone in a white coat. "Are these mine, Soldier? Can they do anything?" They were standing outside what had once been the sort of cottage Rhea could only dream of visiting.

"One nurse, one senior and two junior trainee nurses, Doctor." A fourth-year undergrad was now a "senior trainee"? Rhea felt sorry for the patients.

The doctor sighed in relief. "Well, that's something, even if I can only use one. Give me the two juniors, we've got convalescing patients washing tools right now. I'll deal with the other two later." He looked at the four of them. "Which ones are those?"

Marks lightly pushed Rhea and Alex forward. "One-Three-Eight-Seven and One-Three-Eight-One, go with Doctor Lee." The doctor waved them down a hall, and they followed, glancing back at Cordelia and Jo. Would they see them again?

The doctor kept on chattering as they walked. "Don't worry about the soldiers. Just keep your head down and do what you're told, and you won't have any issues." _Oh, I'm a fucking _expert _at that, _Rhea thought. She was liking the Rebellion less and less. "You'll be working from eight to eight, with a half-hour break for lunch. Breakfast and dinner will also be right here. If you need water, just drink from the tap, it's clean. You can leave your coats and boots here," he said, leading them inside a room with clotheshooks on the wall. Rhea hung up her coat and hat, and took off her boots. They weren't given shoes.

"Well, it's not too cold here, and it's absolutely boiling where you'll be working, of course." He led Rhea and Alex down the stairs, down a hallway, and into a large room, which was indeed swelteringly hot.

They were in the laundry room, their new home until the war ended. People were sitting at sinks, scrubbing medical tools, bedpans, and all sorts of small equipment. Not clothes or sheets, though. They must have washing machines for that somewhere else. What they did have in the room, however, were autoclaves for sterilizing the tools. This was a serious setup, not three people boiling old bandages over a wood fire. Rhea and Alex rolled up their sleeves and walked up to a sink.

"Do we just start washing stuff?" Alex asked a woman carefully scrubbing the blades of a pair of scissors.

"Do you know how?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Alex sighed. "We literally just spent months scrubbing floors and washing bedpans, scrubbing bedpans and washing floors. I am sure we are qualified for the washcloth brigade."

The woman seemed to soften. "Well, then, get going. And take off your socks, so they don't get wet." Rhea and Alex hurried to comply, stuffing their socks in their pockets. "You know, before I got here, I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me Capitolites know how to work."

Rhea carefully scrubbed at a stubborn stain on a pair of tweezers. "I mean, why wouldn't we know how to work?" She had never met someone from the Districts before. Who knew what they thought about anything?

Alex asked, "You're from the Districts? Where are you from? What's your name?" Rhea noticed he hadn't introduced them. Their new names were sewn onto the front of their shirts.

The woman squeezed out a sponge. "I'm from Five," she said. "I've always been curious, but we were never told anything. So when the Rebellion started, I joined up because I wanted to know." She didn't give her name.

"Did you find out what you wanted to know?" Rhea asked. She had no idea what to say. How was she even supposed to react? This was a person from the Districts, who probably grew up rightfully hating the two of them.

"Partially," she said. "But it seems to me that I could live for a hundred years and still understand why you people let things go the way they did for this long." Her voice was a soft whisper, and Rhea felt like her chest was being squeezed. She wanted to throw up.

"I don't understand it myself," Rhea whispered, feeling the absurdity of the situation. She was trying to rinse out a dirty washcloth in a Rebellion hospital, which had once been a fancy house. She was a prisoner and had to work if she wanted to live (at least, that was the impression she had received). A District woman probably had the power of life and death over her. Her name was a number, interrogators gave out hot tea, and people joined the Rebellion because they were curious. Nothing was making sense.

They cleaned in silence for a while. There was a clock hanging on the wall. If lunch break was in the exact middle of the shift, from 13:45 to 14:15, there were only a few minutes remaining. Rhea wondered if they would give them something for their hands. She imagined having to clean dirty objects with cracked, bleeding skin.

Fortunately, they were indeed called for lunch soon. Rhea and Alex followed the woman from Five as they got in line. She scanned something on her arm and was handed a tray. The two prisoners were just given one without any scanning. The food seemed to be rice with vegetables and meat, and way too much of it. During the interrogation they had given her as much food as she asked for, but now it seemed they didn't particularly care. Alex thought the opposite.

"This isn't enough!" he hissed to her with an undertone of panic. Without thinking, Rhea dumped half her food onto his tray.

"No, it's too much," she said.

"Well, if you're sure," replied Alex awkwardly, staring at his tray as if it contained the nuclear codes. The woman from Five was looking at them with a strange facial expression.

"That was a good thing you did," she said several hours later when Alex was in the bathroom. "Giving the boy your food."

Rhea shrugged awkwardly. "I need very little food, and he needed more."

The woman smiled weirdly, and Rhea felt that she had missed something important. "I understand. Now, a few years ago, we heard some strange rumours. Probably passed on by our mayor at the time, may she rest in peace. Something about the deputy minister of District Affairs? He was suddenly dismissed, and we heard that there were things happening."

Rhea didn't understand why the woman was suddenly so friendly, but it felt good. And at least she could answer this question. "Um, my friend knows more gossip of those levels than I do, so I might miss some things. Basically, the public was never notified of what happened to him - I don't even know his name-"

"You don't know the names of your own government?"

Alex had returned, and now he butted in. "I certainly don't. We were apolitical. The government wasn't something we cared about."

"Anyway," said Rhea before the pause could get awkward, "the deputy minister just stopped being mentioned one day. There were endless rumours. People thought he had been executed for being in the Rebellion, or he was insane, or he had tried to overthrow Snow, or he had run off to the Districts-"

"I heard a friend joke that he had gone to Thirteen, but I think he was just saying random things," added Alex. "So people knew about it all the way in Five, huh? Well, it wasn't really a big deal up top. Mostly just suspicious silence."

"Do you know what he did as deputy minister?" asked the woman.

The prisoners shook their heads. "I guess he oversaw policy?" Alex ventured a guess. "Like, if your mining quotas were raised, his signature would be on it."

"You know about the mining?" the woman asked. "It didn't seem like they mentioned secondary industries on television."

"You knew about secondary industries?" asked Alex. "From what I saw, they tried to give as little information as possible to the Districts." Everyone knew which District had what primary industry, but Rhea didn't recall secondary and tertiary industries being openly mentioned even in the Capitol. She only knew about them because Julius was far too open with his trivia.

The woman shrugged. "I knew that we have more than just power plants. That meant the other districts have more than what they tell us, right?"

"Wow," said Rhea. "I never really thought about it. All I know is because someone else told me." She wondered what her friends were doing. Were they worried about her? Did they think she was dead? What were Mom and Dad and Zepher and Di thinking? They were probably so worried. Rhea wanted to sink through the ground. For the rest of the day, Alex and the woman from Five talked about their lives, but Rhea didn't have the mental energy. She felt stuck in her own thoughts, lost in her own mind.

When their shift was over, Rhea and Alex were led to another large room in the basement. Was this their new home?

"Looks cozy," said Alex, but his smile was weak.

The room contained bunk beds. A lot of bunk beds, three tall. At least they were getting beds. Rhea and Alex were even able to find bunks next to each other, as men and women alike shared the same room. Along one wall was a row of shelves, each labelled with their numbers. Rhea poked through hers, finding spare clothes. As another prisoner wheeled out a cart with trays of food, they introduced themselves to the other prisoners.

"I'm Rhea," she told an older man who was going to be sleeping above her. "I was studying to be a nurse."

"That's nice," said the man. "My name's Tertius, and I was a cleaner. Well, I still am one."

"Is everyone here a medical professional or a cleaner?" asked Alex, leaning over. "I haven't seen any office workers around." Rhea hadn't noticed that.

Demetrius shrugged. "I've seen a bunch, just not around here. In the hospitals, they need people they trust to do things around here without much supervision. And they don't need clerks, they need hands to wash and clean and carry. I even saw Slice-"

"Who's that?" asked Rhea, hoping it wasn't anyone too important.

"She had been in charge of the television programming that aired in the Districts. Did you two never read the news?" asked Tertius in a baffled tone.

"We were students, we didn't care about politics," said Alex with a shrug.

Tertius laughed. "Apolitical citizens, eh? Yeah, everyone's telling that one. Good luck convincing them."

Rhea wanted to ask him what had happened to Slice, but then Lieutenant Vance walked in. Everyone fell silent and stood up, Rhea and Alex a beat too late. What was he doing here? "Before you eat," he said, "there's a propo I want you to watch." Was this a thing that happened? But everyone else was looking confused. What was this going to be? News from the front? Rhea kind of wanted to find out what the fuck was happening out there, but was mostly annoyed at the delay of dinner, hungry and tired and just wanting to curl up under the blanket. Hopefully the propo would be short.

An image, the Mockinjay symbol appeared on one of the walls. They all sat down on the floor in front of it. Alex seemed to be tense.

The image turned into a boy sitting on a couch and facing the camera. He looked to be around the same age as her brother.

"Um, do I just talk?" he asked, addressing someone off-screen. A voice encouraged him to start talking. The boy fidgeted with his sleeves. He was dressed like a person from Thirteen, but he looked like someone from Nine. "All right." He looked right at the camera, staring into Rhea's eyes. "My name is Rye Drezer. I'm from District Nine and I am fifteen years old." He was about the same age as her brother. "Well, I'm fifteen now, I was twelve back then. When my name was called at the Reaping."

There was silence in the room.

"My name was in there twice. Only twice. And they still Reaped me." Rye was fidgeting even harder now, looking away from the camera, wiping at his face. "I knew I was going to die. I walked up to the stage, and I felt sad because I hadn't even said goodbye to my grandma when we had left the village that morning. I was really scared, but also kind of not scared? I knew I was going to die, so I guess I thought there was no point in being scared. It happened every year, and this time, it was my turn." He looked at something or someone beyond the camera for a while and looked back at Rhea. Not angry, not accusing. Just impossibly, infinitely sad.

"There was no hope. I knew I was going to die, I would never get to ride a tractor or get married or anything. It's like I was already dead. And then _he _answered the call for volunteers." Rye sounded more anxious now, more pained. Rhea looked away. Some people were wiping at their faces. Rye kept on speaking. "I found out when I visited him that Jack had wanted to die, and chose to do it in a way that would help someone. But when I was standing on the stage, and it was like he called out to say 'You will live!' - I will never forget that moment, not if I live a hundred years. I knew I was going to die, and then I knew my death had been delayed. For another year, at least." Rhea vaguely remembered that incident. She had laughed about it with her friends. So dumb, they had thought, to volunteer for the Games and die in the bloodbath almost immediately.

Rhea felt tears prickling at her eyes. Because yes, Rye had went through all that, and still had seven years of Reapings to get through. Seven chances to die. How many children had been saved by the Rebellion breaking out? She realized that children were still dying right now, and the tears flowed freely. Would Panem ever stop being a place where children were dying every single day? Not with people like her around, that was for sure.

"The next year," Rye continued, "I nearly fainted when the boy's name was drawn. If it had happened once, surely it could happen again? What if I was supposed to be in the Games, and Jack had just ruined their plans for a year? But my name wasn't drawn. And then the year after that was the Quarter Quell, and everyone of Reaping age sighed in relief because none of us would face death that year." Rhea had never thought of it that way. To her, the Quarter Quell had seemed extra-vicious, taking people who thought they were safe and throwing them back into the Arena. But what did she know about what it was like in the Districts?

Rye was still talking. "So yeah, that's how I nearly died in the Seventy-Third Hunger Games." He smiled weakly at the camera. "I don't think there's many people like me. People only volunteered for strangers in One, Two, and Four. Um, is that it?" He looked beyond the camera again, looking much younger than fifteen, and the image disappeared.

Silence reigned in the hut. Nobody moved until Lieutenant Vance called for everyone to line up for dinner and left, presumably to show the propo to others. They received their food without a word, and Rhea dumped half of hers onto Alex's tray again, but he didn't eat.

"You need to eat," Rhea hissed between bites. She felt like she was going to throw up, but she couldn't just miss meals. "You'll be too weak to work if you starve yourself."

After finishing dinner, she climbed into bed without undressing and fell asleep to the sounds of prisoners angrily whispering that Thirteen had no right to judge any of them (literally or figuratively?), not after they had spent the last seventy-five years hiding. The next morning, she woke up early, when the majority were still sleeping. Rhea quickly washed her face, ran her hands through her hair (at least short hair didn't need to be combed as much), and went about making her bed, all with a vague feeling of emptiness. What was really the point of anything? It's not like someone was making her make the bed neatly. But it felt nice, to be doing something. Anything at all to distract herself, especially since she had no idea what was going on out there.

She sat on the cold floor and wondered what her friends would tell her if they were there. Julius would probably be awing all the District people with everything he knew about them. Mala would be trying to make her cringe with jokes about the strip-search. Rhea cringed just imagining it. Mala's jokes made her want to shrivel up and die even when she wasn't actually making them. And what would Mom and Dad say?

Fortunately, at that moment, Lieutenant Vance walked in (what was he even _doing_ there? Didn't he have lieutenant things to worry about?), and Rhea awkwardly jumped up, trying to mimic a stance at attention she had only seen before. He looked at her bunk, and for a second, Rhea thought he nodded with approval. Then he shouted at everyone to get up and queue for breakfast, which was, once again, a portion twice bigger than what Rhea needed. After eating, they went every which way to their workstations.

For the next month or so (there were no calendars for prisoners and Rhea didn't see the point in tracking dates when she didn't even know what was happening on the front), that was her life. Wake up. Make bed neatly (Lieutenant Vance apparently approved of prisoners who acted like they were from the precise and orderly Thirteen, though she never saw him again after the first day). Give half of breakfast to Alex. Go to work, wash instruments and mop floors, listen to the District workers, ignore the gossip. She couldn't stand gossiping when they were potentially discussing the deaths of her loved ones. Lunch. More work. Dinner. Defend the Rebellion in arguments, even though she didn't care for it much. Better didn't mean good. Sleep. Over and over, with only Alex for company, who was the only person she was really close to. She was friendly with most people, but not particularly close to them.

Then suddenly, one day, she was transferred somewhere else, away from Alex.

"I'm being relocated," said Lieutenant Vance to a small group of confused prisoners, "and I was told to gather a group of reliable prisoners. I will be warden to the key prisoners captured, and you will be the workers keeping the jail running. I trust you know what will happen if you step beyond the bounds of your responsibilities." Rhea knew by now that the Rebellion wasn't going to just shoot you like that, but she wanted to keep the good job close to the important people where she actually got as much food as she liked.

The jail turned out to be a large suburban house stripped of its nice furniture and with more walls added in for cells. The lesser prisoners all bunked in a section of the basement. An unpleasant surprise was the food. Rhea found herself getting as much as she needed to maintain a borderline-healthy weight, and not a calorie more. Soon, she'd have the lean, slightly pinched look of those from Thirteen.

A worse surprise was everything to do with the key prisoners, currently only three in number.

"Basically," said a cook who was from Eleven originally, "the Rebellion is going to put the key prisoners on trial. A real trial, not like the political stuff even we heard about way in the Outer Districts."

Rhea was confused. "But how can you have a political trial that isn't, well, political?" she asked, rinsing a mop in the sink.

"I don't know, I'm not an expert. I say, just hang the crowd and be done with it. It's clear as anything they're guilty. Now what _you_ should be worried about is that you're staying here until the trial is over and the sentences carried out."

That didn't seem too bad. Political trials were usually pretty quick, unless the defendant turned out to have connections, but not enough to actually free them. She told so to the cook, and got a shrug in response. Rhea went back to squeezing out the broom, and the cook - to inspecting potatoes. They had started getting fresh food, instead of rations. Was that a sign of something? Definitely. Rhea just wasn't sure of what.

So she was going back home a few weeks after the war ended, and not immediately after? Not that bad of a deal. They'd probably have forced her into reconstruction efforts, anyway. Rhea took the mop, picked up a bucket, and went to wash the hallway, wishing someone would just explain everything to her. Apparently the war was going well. But what did 'well' mean when talking about a war?

The prisoners were miserable individuals, aware of their approaching executions. Maybe this was the Districts' revenge. Make the Capitolians be the ones waiting to die. Send adults to death, though. To look better. As Rhea mopped the floor, she wondered for the billionth time how her family and friends were doing, and how the Rebellion was progressing. All she heard was gossip, and it varied from the merely inane to the completely insane.

Allegedly, a Capitol propo said that the Mockingjay was dead. No, she was on a secret mission undercover. No, she had broken with the Rebellion and was back in Twelve with her beloved. Rhea had no idea what to believe, so she chose to ignore everything until she had proof. But it was hard to ignore some of the rumours that came her way.

The Rebellion was going to execute the Capitol's leaders after the war. No, the Rebellion was going to execute every Capitolian after the war. No, they were going to execute the majority, and turn the useful ones into slaves. No, they were planning to hold a final Hunger Games, with the Capitol's children. Just listening to some of those made Rhea want to curl up and die.

At least the one about the leaders being executed made sense. Soon, there were five key prisoners awaiting trial in the fancy-house-turned-jail, and the outcome of the trial was obvious. She saw them from time to time when they were taken outside to walk in the tiny yard for half an hour, the only diversion they had aside from interrogations. Rhea shuddered to think that she and her friends could have easily been among them, had they been a decade or so older. Her mood was not improved by the appearance of a psychologist from Thirteen. Dr. Aurelius was officially there to study the key prisoners and make sure their mental health didn't deteriorate too much, but since there were only five of them, he found the time to talk to the minor prisoners as well.

"How are you finding work here?" he asked one day as Rhea ironed a bedsheet. She shrugged, and kept on ironing. "Are you worried about what Lieutenant Vance thinks of you?" he continued, gesturing to the iron. Lieutenant Vance was a born-and-bred Thirteen soldier, and he preferred everything to be neat and tidy and disciplined.

"Kind of?" she said hesitantly. "I mean, I definitely want to make sure nobody can complain about me, but I also just like having everything be neat. Makes me feel like I have control over something." She kept her eyes firmly on the ironing, regretting having said that out loud.

Dr. Aurelius smiled softly. "Well, it is certainly normal for someone in your position to feel powerless. By the way, how are the people from the Districts treating you?"

Rhea put aside the iron with more force than necessary. "I don't have time to talk," she lied, folding the sheet and putting it in a bin. "I need to carry this to someone." She grabbed the bin and ran.

Eventually, the psychologist found her again. And again. He acted as if picking the brains of the Capitolians would give him some all-important insight into the human mind. He talked to her just like Stephanie, the interrogator. Not pushing, letting the conversation drift, but always making Rhea open up on whatever topic deemed necessary. It actually wasn't too bad once she got used to the painful questions. At least she now had somebody to talk to, even if his endless questions about guilt and responsibility were misery to contemplate, let alone answer out loud. But it must have been a hundred times worse for the key criminals, stuck in their cells alone unless talking to an interrogator or Dr. Aurelius.

Rhea didn't even notice it when the Rebellion won. She had been in the attic fixing a small leak in the roof when another prisoner ran up, babbling.

"It's over!" she said, stumbling over her words. "Snow has been captured! He bombed children before being taken!"

"Um, what?"

The minor prisoners were all sat in front of a television to learn of what had happened. Rhea wasn't particularly surprised. Of course Snow had decided to take out everyone else with him. It sounded like something he'd do. At least now it was over.

* * *

It was over, but it wasn't close to being over for Rhea. She'd be now moved to an actual jail and stay there until the executions of the key criminals were over, which meant a solid month before she had any hope of release. A bright spot in it all was being allowed to write to her family and friends. Now that the war was over, the Rebellion was becoming more generous with the prisoners.

She got her first letter a week later. It was a short note from her family. Reading it, she nearly cried. Rhea did cry later, when the letter from her friends arrived. It was full of bantering insults, and it made her miss her friends so much, it hurt. Why couldn't she be released, too? So many prisoners were being let go, but not the workers of Jail #2. They were still needed by the Rebellion.

Rhea kept half an eye on Snow's trial, which was pretty easy, given that it was on television constantly. It was much fairer than a typical political trial, but, of course, it was still political. The key criminals were desperate for details, constantly badgering the guards and the workers for updates. The updates didn't improve their moods. Snow was predictably found guilty of everything he had been charged with, and sentenced to die.

The prisoners were a surly lot, depressed and constantly badgering everyone they could reach for news. Some were clutching at every straw they could, others were resigned. Still others were too depressed to react, barely blinking when their indictments were handed out to them and refusing to see family.

The day of the execution, all the workers crammed into the kitchen to watch the television. Rhea couldn't take her eyes off the image. It wouldn't be the end, but it would be one step closer.

When the Mockingjay shot Coin instead, Rhea had a panic attack and needed to be sedated.

* * *

The trail of the key criminals was dragging on, and on, and on. How in the world were they planning to hold more trials? Rhea found herself wishing that the defendants would just be executed already, so she could go home. She hadn't seen her friends and family for a year, and it sometimes it hurt that she was deprived of their company because President Paylor had insisted on a scrupulously fair trial for a bunch of unrepentant murderers who were coming up with increasingly creative and oddly convincing ways to justify their crimes and blame what they couldn't justify on others. But Rhea knew that was foolish.

Fair trials, Rhea decided, were boring. Really boring. She occasionally managed to sit in the courtroom for a few hours, but always left just as confused as before. Documents were read and witnesses gave testimony, but none of it fit into a coherent picture in Rhea's mind. Did anyone understand what was going on? It sometimes seemed like everyone was just making everything up as they went along. Despite being given way more freedom to act than in any political trial Rhea had ever heard of, the defense lawyers spent most of their time staring at their laptop screens or at documents. She wasn't quite sure what she had expected after hearing the calls to stay the hand of vengeance, but it was not this endless process that threatened to bore the defendants to death.

Observing them was the main entertainment of those stuck in the courtroom day in, day out, and the others liked to hear updates as well. Rhea was often asked for news, as she often carried the orderly's bag when she went around handing out medication, but she never got more than a glimpse or a friendly wave. Who had said what to whom, and how did x react to y document, and what the guards in the men's wing were getting up to - Rhea was just as desperate for updates as anyone else. As far as she could tell, the defendants were trying to attack the legitimacy of the trial, excuse away everything they could, and blame what they couldn't excuse onto the others, preferably the dead ones (but not Snow, though, only a handful repudiated him).

The former head engineer of the Games was testifying. "I was not responsible for what went on during the Games, especially the ones that came before my time," she said in a dull tone, just like everyone else for whom that was technically the truth. Then, she was asked about what role she had played in the planning of the Games. "I wasn't involved in the planning, only the execution. However, I am still in some way responsible for all of the deaths of the Tributes in the arenas I worked on, the same way that I bear partial responsibility for any crimes that may have been committed by those under my command."

Rhea blinked several times in bafflement. Well, that was unexpected. Up until now, they had all been a united front of denial. However, the engineer wasn't exactly rushing to confess. She had pled 'not guilty' like everyone else. The prosecution had asked for the death penalty, so her position was understandable. But then why admit guilt at all? Was this a weird ploy to gain sympathy from the judges?

It turned out that it most likely was. The former Minister of Resources, suddenly and against all logic, also admitted partial responsibility when his turn on the witness stand came around, though he was more evasive on details (which made sense, given that every single person who had starved to death or died trying to fulfill quotas in the Districts over the last three years was on his conscience). In the corridors of the jail, Rhea overheard that they had apparently cooked up this plan together in a desperate attempt to gain some sort of sympathy and lenience, and avoid the noose. Rhea hoped they'd fail.

Time seemed to crawl and to fly at the same time. The trial of the Gamemakers began, probably because this was taking too much time already. But soon enough, the key criminals were hearing their verdicts. Rhea was glued to the television together with the rest of the workers, watching all but one be found guilty. Slice, who had once deceived the entire nation with her television propaganda, took out a wrap from her pocket, unwrapped it, and started to eat.

"You know, I noticed they hate each other," someone pointed out, "but not to that extent."

Several hours later, they gathered to hear the sentences. Out of the twenty-three found guilty, fifteen were slated to die, six were given a life sentence, and the former engineer and former Minister of Resources were sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Rhea did the math. They were both in their late thirties now, and would be in their early sixties upon release, with twenty years remaining bar disease or accident. So they had gotten away with it all. Although Rhea had no right to judge.

Rhea was assigned to building the gallows, and then to taking them down. It wasn't even hard. And then she was handed civilian clothes (still grey, but at least without her number), given back the phone, wallet, and keys taken from her so long ago (the phone was even charged!), and practically shoved out the door, together with the rest of the former prisoners. Biting back a grin, she sent Aliviana a text.

_Guess who's back_

Aliviana must have had her phone on silent, as always. Rhea was about to step into her old building when she got a reply.

_Who's this?_

_I think you have the wrong number._

Wonder of wonders. Aliviana could write without grammatical errors when she wanted.

_It's me, you daft idiot. Who else would it be?_

_no way_

_u really back?_

_do ur parents kno?_

And, there it was again. Rhea opened her apartment door. It was the same as before. Her family wasn't home yet, so she tossed off her shoes and poked through the kitchen for food. There was nothing cooked, so she put eggs to boil. In the meantime, her phone exploded with messages.

_You're back?!_

_The fuck happened to you? We were all so scared_

_I cant believ it_

_What the actual fuck_

_You _have _to tell us everything, I saw you on the television, you looked dead_

_Your family was fuckin terrified_

Rhea answered all the texts while eating the eggs. They decided to meet up at Julius' apartment in fifteen minutes, because apparently he had some super-important guests over and a bunch of them were there already. She walked the familiar route with an ache in her chest. To see her friends again…

She knocked on the apartment door, heart hammering with anticipation. The lock clicked, the door opened, and she found herself staring at Aliviana. Without thinking, Rhea embraced her, sending them both flying to the floor. And then Mala was running up to squeeze her in a rib-cracking hug that Rhea didn't complain about for the first time ever, and then the entire company was sitting on the floor, trying to crush her with their combined weight. Two oddly-dressed people were sitting on the couch, holding Julius' precious record from before the Dark Days.

Slowly, they got up off the floor, still grinning maniacally. Julius was addressing the strangers, except that his words made no sense.

"Yeah, sorry about this," he said to Rhea. "It's just that I _finally_ found the people whose music this is!"

"These are...foreigners?" she asked. Rhea had seen some foreign journalists at the trial, but never face-to-face. "No wonder you're so happy," she added with a grin. "Your dream has come true!"

Julius rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course. The fact that my friend is home after a year and a fucking half is nothing."

Later that evening, they turned on the television to watch the sentencing of the Gamemakers. The foreigners turned out to know a lot about Panem, and it was strange to hear their perspectives on everything.

Two of the Gamemakers were released due to mitigating circumstances (basically involvement in the Rebellion), and the rest were all sentenced to death, except for the youngest, who was sentenced to life instead for no reason Rhea could understand. Despite being twenty-nine, he could have easily passed for eighteen, or even seventeen. When his sentence was read, he looked like a District boy whose name had been drawn out of the Reaping bowl. She wondered how long he'd live.

When Rhea got home, her family still wasn't there. She had to wait half an hour, getting antsier and antsier, the television no distraction at all.

The door opened, and Mom, Dad, Zepher, and Di were all staring at her. She waved awkwardly, face heating up. "Um, I'm home?" she said, and looked away awkwardly as her parents burst into tears.


End file.
